Wagner, Maine at Shea

I’m off today on the heels of the road trip, but I returned home and threw on Mike Francesa. YES showed video of both Billy Wagner and John Maine at Shea. Wagner was in the bullpen and Maine was running laps around the warning track.

Jerry Manuel is about to come on WFAN with Francesa. For those of you at work, I’ll listen in and pass along any tidbits Manuel has to offer. I’ll also have a complete pregame report, thanks to colleague Brian Heyman.

UPDATE, 3:05 p.m.: Manuel didn’t have too much to say that we didn’t already know, but here’s a quick peek…

â€” It sounds like Pedro Martinez will pitch tomorrow.
â€” It also sounds like Wagner will return next week, as I said in yesterday’s notebook. “We feel very good about his chances of coming back. I don’t think it will happen this weekend, but shortly after that he should be ready to go,” Manuel told Francesa.
â€” Manuel wasn’t optimistic about Maine. He also said they were no longer considering using Maine out of the ‘pen.
â€” Manuel believes Dan Murphy can play second base. Or, at the very least, he believes the organization owes it to Murphy to believe in him. “I think Murphy’s a good baseball player. it would be not fair if we didn’t think he could do that,” Manuel said. “If you are a baseball player, and that’s what you do, you should be able to play any where on that field, except for maybe behind the plate.”
â€” As for tonight, Manuel said Luis Ayala will pitch the ninth if there’s an opportunity.

JOSH THOMSON joined The Journal News and LoHud.com in March 2003 and has covered high school football, basketball, baseball and pro and college sports ever since. He graduated in 1998 from Carmel High School and in 2002 from Boston University with a degree in communications. Josh spends the majority of his free time with his wife and two daughters.

CLM—not for nothing but it’s a little disrespectful to Josh and the fantastic job that he has been doing to throw in a plug for JD’s new blog. I mean stuff happens, the paper decided to move on with him and that’s that. It’s like you and a few others are trying to sway readers away from this blog. I don’t know, maybe I’m overreacting.

A lot of people feel loyal to John. He was the mod here for a long time and ties were forged. Josh is doing a good job here, too. No reason why people cant blog on more than one site. Back to the Mets, I wasnt too worried about losing maine for the playoffs if Pedro was healthy, but now that pedros health is in question (again) that leaves us only 3 viable starters. Niese didnt impress me with his 88 mph straight fastball. Are we going to be seeing Brandon Knight throwing game 4 in the playoffs? (If The Mets get there)?

I like Josh’s work a lot and starting coming here at the end of the Delcos era. Josh, it will take you a little while to build your own audience and it’s not an apples and apples comparison to look at your participation #s vs. JD’s. Keep up the great work and your audience will find you. Folks with loyalty to JD will follow him and some will split. The market base is massive and you will find your fans and they will find you.